Monday, April 21, 2008

Things are going great here in Davie, FL. We have tentative baptism date for one of our investigators, so hopefully everything will go well for him.

It’s definitely getting warmer down here. For a few days it was nice and cool, in the mid 60's with a nice breeze. We biked around a bit that day because it was so nice, but then the heat came on with a vengeance and now it’s almost 90 and the wind disappeared. I’m hoping for some rain soon that will keep the heat down.

Funny.... When I was in the MTC, I was complaining about the cold... now it’s too hot..... I hate weather....

Some birds carpet-bombed our car so we had white spots all over it. Elder Seegmiller washed them off too quickly though and I didn’t get any pictures.... I swear the whole flock was aiming for us....

I weighed myself today.... I’ve gained 13 pounds since I left Las Vegas. Which is hard to believe considering my diet mainly consists of turkey sandwiches and water... maybe it’s the lack of exercise?

Well that’s about all the time I have today... Sorry for the lack of detail, but a whole pile of letters are going out to y'all as I write this. There are some people that I want to write but I don’t have your addresses. Send me an email or a letter (addresses are above) so that I can send some back!

Thanks for all the support. I really appreciate it even when I’m not always able to get communications out in a timely manner :)

Monday, April 14, 2008

Apparently people dont think i add enough details so heres 2 episodes in one week!

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:I'm actually not in the Deaf Program yet since President Reynolds wants to train the ASL missionaries in the English Program first so that we can get practice teaching a lot since the Deaf Program is reallly slow for missionary work.

The ASL program currently is run by one pair of Sister missionaries. Their area covers the entire mission because the amount of work to do is so small right now. From what I've heard, the deaf branch here is really good and has a lot of nice people, but they have a hard time keeping people active since the one branch covers the entire mission as its boundaries. Thats hard since the mission is almost 500 miles long!

There are 6 Elders, including myself, that are called to be in the ASL program, and none of us are in it right now. We all are in either the English or Spanish program. Its a total bummer since I have not met ANY deaf people at ALL since ive been down here. My companion, Elder Seegmiller, doesn't know any sign language at all and has almost no interest in learning it. So I'm losing practice at it :-(

As some may believe, I'm not running out of shirts. Its just that I ruined my best one. I still have several more. No, the only things I'm low on at the moment is food (grocery store is next on our to-do list, but I'm kind of running low on money this month....) and time, since this hour-or-so once a week is all the time I seem to have to write letters.

I'm gettting along great with my companion, though sometimes I think he overplans out day. But at the same time, there's nothing bad about overplanning....... :-)

Well, that's all the time I have for today (Elder Seegmiller wants to leave) so I'll sign off again.

"I'M BEING EATEN ALIVE!!!!!! AAAHH!!!!!"The mosquitoes are out in full force and they discovered just how lovely my blood tastes.

and they brought friends......

I've never been so itchy in my life. One particular group of them took a chunk out of my shoulder and I bled through one of my white shirts.... It made me mad cause that was my only Wrinkle Free one.... arg.

The work goes good. The other set of Elders in our ward had a double baptism on Sunday. Sister Stone, a 74-Year-Old spitfire of a woman and Sister Peddy, a 9-Year-Old daughter of an inactive member. It was a good baptismal ceremony, and lots of family came along and a few of them were interested in hearing more about the gospel. Which is great!

The families we are teaching are progressing well, and we are really trying to focus on reactivating some of the less active people in our ward.

Well I'm runnning low on time for this week. Thanks for all the mail you've sent me, and I will try to send out as much mail as I can. We're just so busy down here that its hard to get time to sit down and write a bunch of letters like I did in the MTC. Don't worry, I'm working on it and I haven't forgotten anyone.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Thus Endeth another week here in the mission field! Everything is going great here and the work is progressing smoothly.

We got a chance to watch General Conference Saturday and Sunday, which was a great experience. I loved all the talks and really felt the spirit. We got a neat opportunity to participate in the Solemn Assembly and sustained the new prophet Thomas S. Monson. We also got a new Apostle in D. Todd Christofferson.

That was a cool experience.

A few of the investigators we are working with:

Ronnie, a Father of 2, is one of our more promising investigators. his wife and kids are already members and were baptized about a year ago. He has a good testimony and according to the requirements for Baptism he is ready to be baptized, but he still feels he wants to learn more before he commits to being baptized. we decided to lay off baptism for a while and let the spirit do its work.

A new person we contacted, Valerie, seems quite interested. When we contacted her she said she only had a minute or two for a short scripture but she ended up asking questions and being taught for almost half an hour! She is currently on vacation in Ireland and wont be back for a few weeks, so we can't teach her again quite yet.

Brother Krecker, a less active member, is starting to reopen himself to the gospel and his neighbor, Harry, is now also interested in hearing the gospel. Who would have thought that a member who had almost lost all interest in church became a source for referrals?

So those are a few of the people we are teaching. I'm running out of time so I'm going to close this post with a quote from Elder Bednar's talk yesterday:

Sunday, April 6, 2008

AAALLLOOOOOOOOHAAAA!!!!!

Greetings from South Florida everyone! I hope everyone is doing great!

So as you all may have heard by now I got called out to the mission field 4-1/2 weeks early! WOW!

Monday: I was sitting in class and a call came into the classroom. All the classrooms are wired with 2-way speakerphones so the Front desk can contact people as needed. The call came for Elder McMullin to go down to the District President's office. Elder McMullin is also going to Fort Lauderdale. Another missionary, Elder Fraser, volunteered to go with him because mission rules say that a missionary can’t be alone. Elder Fraser is also going to Fort Lauderdale....

After what seemed like an hour they were still missing, and we started to think about what was going on.... then a knock came at the door. It was an MTC security guard looking for me..... and that’s when I knew. I'm going out early.

President Hanson talked to the three us us for a while and gathered our input on whether or not we are ready to go.

Long story short, all three of us went.

We were given 12 hours notice that we would be leaving at 4 AM the next morning. I NEEDED TO PACK!!!I spent the next little bit of time trying to get everything organized and ready to go, then came dinner. dinner was nice, we had steak that tasted like a charcoal briquette, but otherwise it was nice.

After dinner we were supposed to go back to class one last time, but President Hanson told us we needed to spend the time packing and getting ready. Elders McMullin and Fraser decided that they would go to class anyway. when I found out that everyone had left me in the residence hall I Dashed up to the classroom in a huff, and still in my P-Day clothes...

When I got there, Brother Featherstone saw me in my p-day clothes and said that I need to be in class and that I need to go back and change.

I was stymied... but I obeyed.

When I got back, brother black, who had been absent the last few days, was there. I sat down and started listening to what he had to say.

Turns out his brother had died in a car accident a few days prior. he told us about it and about how it made him feel. he said that the event hurts, since it’s his only other sibling, but because of his faith in the atonement and the plan of salvation he is at peace about it. it was a really tender moment and I’m glad I didn’t miss it.

Tuesday! TRAVEL DAY!

I woke up at 3AM got everything finalized and boarded the bus to the airport. there were 19 of us of various languages going to FTL that day. we had to fly through Atlanta where we were delayed about an hour because the plane had broken down and they had to pull another one out of the hangar. :P

We got into FTL about 4:30 Eastern time and met President and Sister Reynolds. they're really nice people and everyone says he’s an awesome mission president. we spent the night at the mission home which is HUGE!! it’s a mansion... literally.....

We got acquainted with the mission staff and got everything set to start working the next day.

WEDNESDAY - TODAY

I’m running out of time so ill condense this part. threes more information in the coming videos...

I met my First companion, Elder Seegmiller. he’s cool, but a bit quiet. I’ll send some pictures along once I have time to take them.

I’m getting used to my ward. I'm assigned to the Davie West area which is just west of fort Lauderdale. the investigators we have are nice, but no baptisms in sight yet... I’ll let you all know.

Aaaaaanwyay. that’s all the time I get this week, send me some mail and ill write you too! the address posted is the best one since they can just forward it out to me, but don’t send UPS or FEDEX there. they can’t forward that. if you want to send something UPS or FEDEX just send it to my current address which is:

1690 W Sandpiper LanePembroke Pines, FL 33026

I should be there for at least the next 5 weeks. I’ll let everyone know when transfer week is coming and to stop sending there....